Michael Jackson apparently has gotten his money.

On Thursday, he began paying off millions of dollars in debts, thanks to settlements and lost legal cases.

The payoffs could amount to at least $20 million, by some accounts.

That’s good news for the creditors, but bad for Jackson. In this latest refinancing of a $300 million loan secured by his interest in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Jackson may only have received about $25 million in fresh cash. He was otherwise so cash poor that he and his kids were living in Las Vegas with his mother, waiting for the deal to be finalized.

Still pending is a deal to let him set up shop at London’s O2 Arena for performances over a three-month period beginning in February. (We reported that story first exclusively on Dec. 11.) But Jackson’s legendary eccentricities have made getting insurance for him nearly impossible.

The new owner of Jackson’s humungous debt is HSBC Private Banking, with Sony Music acting as a guarantor.

It seems that every 18 months, Jackson manages to refinance the loan, originally begun at Bank of America in 1995. Always at risk is his 50 percent stake in the publishing company that contains all the songs written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

“The Beatles catalog,” as it is known, has come to be Jackson’s only security and the smartest investment ever made by a performer. He can thank his then-attorney John Branca for leaving him with some protection against his own whims.

What remains a mystery is the fate of Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in Los Olivos, Calif. Technically, the Ranch is still in danger of being foreclosed on. A default notice, first reported in this column, for $23 million, has been in effect since Oct. 19. Its 90-day grace period runs out in two weeks.

Thursday, a title company sent a smaller lien holder on Neverland, F. Marc Schaffel, a “Request for Payoff of Lien or Judgment,” asking for information so they could remove him from the bill. But that still leaves Fortress Investments, and their $23 million. It’s unclear whether Jackson has the money or inclination to save Neverland. He hasn’t lived there since June 30, 2005.

In the current rash of payoffs to eagerly waiting parties, Jackson is thought to have divided about $4 million between Schaffel and a former manager, Dieter Wiesner. Another million may have gone to sometime lawyer Brian Oxman. About $5 million is thought to have been owed to Darien Dash, cousin of Damon Dash, who sued Jackson almost 10 times that last year. There are also about four different sets of legal teams awaiting unpaid bills, and one major accountant.

One pending question will be a payoff for Prince Abdulla of Bahrain. He recently sued Jackson in the UK for $7 million.